


Take a Bow

by SpaceSexual



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Witcher - Fandom
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Jaksier Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 08:35:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22153138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceSexual/pseuds/SpaceSexual
Summary: Songs are sung, and at the end - well, it's time to take a bow.Jaksier's song ends on a rest.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 19
Kudos: 508





	Take a Bow

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry!

_Oh._

Jaskier blinks because it's all he really can think to do. He tilts his head in consideration, eyes to the world around him as he really tries to think. He's got both his feet under him, stance secure and ready - _what was he ready for, again?_

_Oh.._ . _That_. 

Well. 

He's sung about this before, some of the first songs he'd ever picked up were about this, something endearing to him with their solemn beats, the long held notes that let him get all the listeners swooning at his croon. 

It feels different now- which it _absolutely_ should, of course it should. It's actually _happening_ _to him_. It would be _weird_ if it _didn't_ feel different. 

...It feels a little weird regardless. He was really expecting it to hurt. 

Well - perhaps not expecting _his_ to hurt. He imagined far _far_ more wails of despair. A lover's clutching caress. A kings solemn thanks for service, perhaps. He at least expected more wrinkles, a bit more wisdom to his ways.

He's still standing and he's thinking about those songs he used to sing, those heroic tales. He thinks about when they reached their chorus, how hard he would sing the names, their histories; folk heroes, mythic legends, queens of destiny and kings of chaos. Their legacies used to fall from his lips until he began to write legends of his own. 

He's a little bitter he won't get to write this next one. He has some _very_ specific ideas.

His shoulder makes a sudden impact with the wall and Jaskier realizes he's not as stable on his feet as he was a moment ago, the jostle making his lip quiver. 

All those tawdry songs - all those small performances in taverns, or big ones in the large halls - all lead him here. He could map out _this_ song in his head, himself the subject of the chorus. Jaskier felt the air push from his lungs like he was belting to the sky, his jacket tugging at the wood slats of the wall as he sinks down to the ground. 

_Oh._ There it is. _Oh_ . "Yeah-, _ha-,_ " His breath hitches. 

It doesn't feel weird anymore but it _certainly_ , _absolutely_ , blazes his senses with _agony_. 

He's shaking as he keeps his gaze up and away, breath fast and sharp, piercing the air with a resignation and punctuating with a touch of hysteria. 

Jaskier decides every ballad, bard and bastard with a musical disposition needs to be taken out back of _wherever_ they come from and mercilessly _beaten_ . Tales and tunes and songs of the death of the hero _never once mention_ how bad it hurts. 

It hurts. It hurts _a lot_.

His song _better_ mention how painful all this is, in _very explicit detail_ . He wants _nothing_ left to the imagination - no artistic whimsy, or liberal application of glittering words. 

Jaskier is breathing far too quick for comfort, his hands chilling in the air as he looks down at them, the bright red painting across him, his front, down his legs. His chest rattles with his breathing. He can't help the painful moan, his throat feeling dry, the garbled gasp in it bubbling with his staccato breaths. 

Perhaps his take would have to be a mix of performance art. _Yes_ \- no _really_ it would _have_ to be. Every bard would his salt to his craft would _have_ perform this, the whole song, including a rather dramatic display for the crowd where they - 

_Oh. Yeah- that_ , "Ahh-hhhh _rrgh_ ." Jaskier grits his teeth as he just lamely presses around the wound with shaking, numb fingers. He's chuckling- a little. It's kind of funny - really, it - _ha_. 

-To play _his_ song, every other bard would also have to be _skewered_.

Bollocks to every _single_ historical song he's _ever_ sung. Bollocks to those other heroes, and folk legends, and glamourous tales of those kings and queens who died, who were felled, who were _struck_ in their prime - _because this is fucking awful!_

Dying is _awful!_ Those tales, those songs, _are shit!_ They are shit, now and forever because they _did_ and _do not_ grasp _the gravity of the subject_.

Jaskiers got tears in his eyes as he tried to reign in his laughter or his breathing. He's light-headed. He's feeling a little too dizzy as his head bounces back against the wall behind him. 

His legs are cold. The song in his head, though? It's _fire_. 

It's angry and bitter and it's so, so _entrenched_ in his pain that he's a little glad no one will ever sing it- or hear it. He's not sure this song is something that can be sung. 

Perhaps a sonnet instead. A soliloquy at the end of the stage play of his life. Something solemnly delivered, not quite a eulogy, not quite a private mourning, but a direct, _firm_ address to the audience. What's happening to him, what _happened_ to him. Jaskier, beginning to end, summed up in a firm, direct, and _angry, fiery, agonizing_ soliloquy to a captive audience. 

The air is getting heavy around him, it's making it harder to breath, a _weight_ just pressing down on his body, making his hands sag, his breath slow, his head fall back. 

He’s staring at rafters, drafty and spaced and all he can think about are the wings of the stage, looking on as he sees the play get cast.

An actor, a little insultingly more handsome than him, swans across the stage in the tights and doublets of his trade, soft silks and velvet. This is - _was-_ Jaskier, peacocking around life, twittering on as he plucks at a lyre. _A lyre?_

Well - history _clearly_ is going to get it wrong, and an artist as he can understand a _little_ embellishment. This is the part he can stand to be embellished anyways… things will get real soon enough - 

The opening acts throw the actor from town to town to town to hall to tavern to gutter to the edge of the world and that - that is where the White Wolf will make his entrance. 

A grand entrance - perhaps too soon, or too late in the play, the chilled snow white locks in cascading waves because Jaskier can stand to embellish this too. 

It’s a little cliche to have the Wolf _literally_ sweep the Bard off his feet. Jaskier distinctly remembers a gut-punch just _too_ close to below the belt that sent his feet from under him, but _this too_ , he can stand to embellish. 

The two actors would then be sent spinning around the stage, beasts and brigands, bandits and battles would lash from the wings, sending the Wolf and the Bard towards and away from each other as it mapped out the things they shared, the things they didn’t. And then - when the Wolf has his back turned. 

Jaskier hiccups - something like fear settling in, something like worry, something beyond the anger as he realizes this is it. 

The big moment. 

The bard on the stage turns his face to the light and - The Wolf begins the soliloquy. 

_Ah- of course_ . Who else could do it? Who else could grimly describe what it was that did the bard in? Who else could so perfectly lay out, in a matter of fact tone, with as much accuracy and gruesome detail - with the capability to be so _angry_ \- Jaksier’s demise - but Geralt. _Geralt of Rivia._

The Bard races after the Wolf, charging towards the barn across a barren field as Nilfgaard soldiers steadily bear down on them. Wrong place, wrong time, rather unfortunate encounter with a war party. 

They’re surrounded, and in the distance a clash of steel sings in the darkness. The Wolf has his back turned and the Bard - well he sees the approaching soldier, the glint of the blade. He’ll run the Witcher through, and for a legend to fall? Like that? In some petty skirmish?

Well - Jaskier can’t let that happen, and nor can the Bard. 

So he's got both his feet under him, stance secure and ready-

_Oh._

Jaskier’s final bow was forced by a blade. Perhaps the sword can be mightier than the pen. 

His vision is swimming, the dark of the night creeping ever closer, the sounds of a fight are still clanging away some discordant beat, but it’s muffled. There’s a low ring in his ears that's starting to dull out all music.

Jaskier can’t find it in him to draw his breath. He gets a final glimpse though, of that snow white hair, perhaps far off in the distance of the fight, or right in front of him. Geralt’s a master with a sword - not so much with words…

Yes… a soliloquy would suit him just fine. 

  
  



End file.
